The Land of Hope & Streams (...where you might not get properly acknowledged in the closing credits)
September 14, 2026
Okay, right off the bat, let's address that omission/misspelling stuff in the closing credits, concerning poor Max and Charlie, respectively...
Coincidentally, this year just happens to mark the 25th anniversary of my first significant writing "gig" for Backstreets Magazine (R.I.P.) Back in 2001, I happily and proudly launched what eventually would become more than two decades of my contributions to the magazine and its website with a fun little piece in issue # 70 on the eleven instances of misspelling, errors, and omissions in the 2001 Video Anthology... DVD release and its packaging. (Click here to get the back-issue if you're interested.)
So I certainly can attest that these kinds of "WTF"-level mistakes have dogged various Springsteen projects over the years. (Hey, just ask "John" Landau about those corrective stickers that had to be affixed to initial printings of the Born to Run LP cover.) I don't know exactly how or why they happen; I'm not even sure if "Bruce, Inc." could explain it if they tried. (And no, personally I don't wish or "need" for them to do so. Nor do I think that any such mistakes actually diminish the quality of the work of art in any significant way)
But they've happened, obviously, and most likely will continue to happen at other times in the future. At least this time around it was just two mistakes, and because Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band: Land of Hope & Dreams American Tour (Philadelphia Freedom Cut) is being rolled out as a multi-part streaming release, it should be relatively easy to correct these two mistakes for the closing credits of the next three installments, as well as for any single full-length version of the concert-film that may follow. (By the way, for anyone who happens to be wondering, the two errors in the Part 1 video can and have been corrected already on certain platforms like Apple Music, but not on other platforms like YouTube, where replacing a video with a corrected version after the original video's been posted is impossible to do without deleting the original post entirely and starting over from scratch.)
Now on to the concert-film (Part 1) itself... I like the mix of smooth, steady, and well-framed professional shots by Chris Hilson's in-house video crew combined with cuts to the handheld-camera, audience-based shots by Thom Zimny and his crew. I LOVE the way the film sounds, especially when "PLAYED LOUD," as most famously advised at the beginning of Martin Scorsese's classic concert-film The Last Waltz. I also like the way that immediately after the opening shots of Bruce in black-and-white as he introduces the show, upon the first shout of "WAR!," we transition to seeing him almost exclusively in color from there on out, and the only time that any E Street Band members are seen in color are whenever they happen to appear in a shot with Bruce. Otherwise, they remain seen in black-and-white. It's a subtle and creative way to reinforce Bruce as bandleader, the key person initiating and sustaining this very special tour, and catching the bulk of the attention, both positive and negative, about it, as well. Of course, your mileage may vary, and it remains to be seen whether this visual approach will remain consistent in the remaining three parts yet to be released.
And as for why we're first seeing this film as a multi-part online release, we now have a good, clear, and reasonable explanation from Springsteen himself, courtesy of his latest Rolling Stone interview with Andy Greene. Click here to read it in full, including a few tantalizing teases about future plans. (Incidentally, it seems that both Greene and Springsteen have forgotten that this tour's regular back-to-back sequencing of "War" into "Born in the U.S.A." is not the first time that's been done. Check out those setlists from the 1988 Tunnel of Love Express Tour, gentlemen.) As Springsteen notes in the interview, an unintended benefit of the multi-part release plan is that it also could help substantially in keeping the political messages of this tour in the public eye (and ear) as the U.S. mid-term election season amps up.
Finally, circling back to those closing credits, but this time in a MUCH more positive light, kudos to whoever decided to end the credits with a dedication of the film "in memory of Dave Marsh." Nobody has written, spoken, and acted more clearly and consistently than Dave did around the role that music - not just Bruce Springsteen's music, but all of popular music - can play in social change. His life and work's enduring impact can be felt in every note and frame of this film; it's great to see it acknowledged so openly.
Bring on Part 2!
